


Professional and Perfect

by Jathis



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Fibro Cecil, Fibro Kevin, Native American Cecil, Native American Kevin, POCecil, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2144814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jathis/pseuds/Jathis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little by little Kevin is remembering things he never did back home in Desert Bluffs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Professional and Perfect

The people of Night Vale are not perfect. The people of Night Vale are very much as imperfect as imperfect can possibly be. What is worse is that they seem  _happy_  in their imperfection and balk whenever they are offered the chance for correction and a taste of perfection.

One day they will learn to accept perfection and cast away their imperfection.

Kevin sits and watches in fascination as these imperfect interns and their radio host enter the station and get ready for their radio broadcast. His eyes are fixed on their appearances. The only thing the interns share are their purple t-shirts from the station itself. Everything else is so different for each one…and this is  _allowed_. They are allowed to wear slacks, or jeans, or skirts, or leggings with their shirts. They are allowed to  _alter_  their shirts with little pins and patches as they wish. They are allowed to be just… so  _different_.

Being different is bad. Strexcorp taught Kevin that. Being different was an affront to the Smiling God, who had worked so hard in making everyone perfect and exactly the same. Why would He wish to make creatures and servants who were  _different_?

Everyone working at the station is allowed to wear their hair however they wish to. Kevin can see interns with their hair covered in religious garments. He sees interns with their hair dyed and shaved in unnatural colors and patterns. He sees interns with hair that is not hair at all but simply tentacles that were groomed and oiled to  _look_  like hair.

He sees interns with natural hair and the screws in his ankles start to turn as his hand goes up to touch his own hair, cut and styled in a Strexcorp approved haircut for men. Natural hair and hairstyles that go well with natural hair are banned by Strexcorp. It is considered… _unclean_  and not  _professional_.

Everything must be professional. Everyone has to look and act exactly the same under the guidelines passed down by the higher-ups. Hair must be straight…hair must be  _perfect._

Kevin watches as his imperfect double speaks with an intern with locs. His imperfect double has his hair in a tight braid today, straight and proud behind his head. He’s using a strip of leather to keep his braid together; Kevin can see just a little of it whenever he moves his head.

Slowly Kevin touches the back of his own head, touching his short and very  _professional_ haircut. The screws in his knees soon start to turn along with the ones in his ankles as he starts to remember that he used to have long hair too. He used to keep his hair in two long braids.

He used to let Vanessa help him braid it and he always let her weave ribbons through the braids. She would smile and say something in Spanish and he would turn and help her fix the colorful silken scarf she wore around her neck to hide the obvious bump there and…

A shriek suddenly rips through Kevin’s throat when the screws in his hips start to turn and he stumbles out of the chair he was sitting in, leaving blood on the seat. Everyone is looking at him now with suspicion and barely concealed hate and all he can do is offer them a wide toothy smile, pretending that this was perfectly normal.

Which it was…in a way.

Wordlessly he staggered out of the room, knowing that he would have to later ask Daniel to help re-educate him and take the bad memories away again.


End file.
